Method and apparatus for mooring airships



W. B. ALARD METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MOORING AIRSHIPS Filed Dec. 24, 1952 &

ATT'YS 4, 1 m ,M N M F 2m o r 2 I m H\/ V \AV/ 2 March 15, 1955 United States Patent C METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MOORING AIRSHIPS William B. Alard, Chicago, Ill. Application December 24, 1952, Serial No. 327,889

4 Claims. (Cl. 244-116) This invention relates in general to the mooring of airships in any locality eliminating the use of a mooring mast and facilitates the guidance of guy ropesto a tractor operator.

It is not always possible or convenient to provide a mooring mast for airships such as a dirigible wherever it may be desired to moor the airship. An emergency landing or a temporary landing may be desirable and the erection of a mast which is regarded as sufficient for this purpose requires considerable time and expense in locating and setting the. mast.

The present invention provides means for eliminating the use of a mooring mast by substituting a plu-' rality of tractors, each tractor having means to facilitate the guidance of the-guy ropes into the hands of the particular tractor operator, the individual guy ropes being then attached to a winch on the tractor, and with all of the guideropes thus attached to a plurality of tractors, the airship is guided, drawn down, and safely moored or anchored by its attachment to the tractors.

Heretofore it has been the practice to lower two or more guy lines or yaw-guy lines from the nose of the ship, one on the portside and the other on the starboard side, and to employ a larger ground crew of men, 100 or more, on each yaw guy to draw the airship to the ground and thus prevent the ship from yawing.

By the applicants method of attaching the three or more yaw-guy lines to the nose of the airship and replacing the ground crew,- and using one crawler tractor for each guy line, the ship may be moored over any obstructionless level area. This eliminates the ground crew and the mooring mast, and enhances the safety of the ship.

An important object of the invention is therefore in the provision of a new and improved method for engaging the yaw-guy lines of an airship and connecting them to tractors which may be moved to a predetermined location thereby eliminating the use of a mooring mast and providing for the safe mooring of an airship in any locality.

A further object of the invention is to provide a tractor with means to facilitate the engagement of a depending portion of a guy rope so that it may be easily guided to the operator of a tractor without his dismounting therefrom and attaching the guy rope to a winding drum or winch in connection with the tractor and thereby allowing him to draw down and move the arrship in conjunction with other tractors similarly equipped and connected to the guy ropes from the other tractors.

A further object of the invention is to provide an open spiral or wire or other material to be attached to a tractor for engaging the depending endof a guy rope or line and directing it by rotating the spiral so that it may be easily grasped by the operator of the tractor and suitably connected by him to the winding drum of his tractor.

Other objects of the invention will appear in the specification and will be apparent from the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. l is a perspective view of a plurality of tractors as they be attached to the nose of an airship for mooring it in any desired location; and

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a tractor as shown in Fig. 1 with an open spiral guiding means for engaging a depending rope and guiding it by the rotation of the spiral to a position where it may be easily grasped by 2,704,193 Patented Mar. 15, 1955 ice ventional mooring mast is also quite an expensive con-- struction which takes considerable time for its erection and although it may be necessary and desirable at an airplane base, it is not customary to provide such mooring masts at various places throughout the country or the territory where the airship is to be used.

This invention provides an easily mobile construction for providing a mooring for an airship at any desired location and may comprise the equivalent of a plurality of tractors with means for engaging the yaw-guy lines of an airship and by drawing the airship down the tractors provide a substantial means for anchoring the airship in any desired and fixed location.

Referring now more particularly to the drawings, an airship 10 such as a dirigible is commonly provided with a projecting nose 12 by which it is moored to a conventional mooring mast and it is also usually provided with a plurality of guide lines 14, 16 and 18 suitably connected to the nose to swing therefrom, the two side lines 14 and 18 being commonly known as yaw guys and the center line 16 being a cable or guy. These may be engaged by ground crews for directing the airship to a mooring mast. A plurality of tractors 20 are provided, one for each of the guy lines, and each tractor has an upright support 22 with an open spiral 24 attached to the upper end of the support and rotatable therewith in a substantially horizontal plane. Each spiral may extend ten, fifteen, or more feet from the axis so that the open end of the spiral will engage one of the depending yaw-guy lines depending upon the position of the particular tractor. The spiral may be rotated in a direction to draw in the engaged end of its particular guy line so that it may be engaged by an operator of the particular tractor without dismounting therefrom and attached by him through a circular frustoconical opening 26 directed around a pulley 28, and connected to a winch or winding drum 30 located on the tractor.

When two or more but preferably three guy lines are thus attached to separate tractors, the lines drawn down and the tractors arranged in a somewhat separated position as shown in Fig. 1, an airship is thus effectively moored and may be positioned in any desired location which is acceptable to the tractors. The tractors having considerable weight also operate to anchor theairship in place and with two or three tractors and spirals of this type, the airship may be safely moored and held in place in any location without the necessity of mooring mast and without the necessity of large ground crews for drawing down and holding the yaw-guy lines.

While this invention has been described in some detail, it should be regarded as an example or an embodiment of the invention and not as a restriction or a limitation thereof, as many changes in the method and apparatus relationship to the ground, dropping a plurality of the ships yaw lines and a nose cable guide line toward the ground, engaging the lower end of each guide line by a horizontally movable centering means, attaching each centered line thus engaged to a universally mobile ground car, drawing the airship downwardly by the engaged lines to the desired distance from the ground and spacing the ground cars apart to anchor the airship laterally and from the nose in any desired and unobstructed location.

2. An apparatus for mooring an airship which has a plurality of guy lines extending from the nose of the ship, comprising a plurality of tractors, one for each of the guy lines, and means in connection with each tractor and movable outwardly therefrom for engaging one of the guy lines as it depends from the airship adjacent the ground in a predetermined area and drawing it inwardly at the center of said means toward the operator of the tractor, and means in connection with each tractor for attaching the engaged end of the guy line and drawing it downwardly for mooring the ship in a fixed location above the ground.

3. An airship mooring apparatus in accordance with claim 2 in which the means for engaging a depending guy line comprises a rotatable spiral open at the outer end and extending in a horizontal plane projecting beyond the sides of the tractor, and means for rotating the spiral to engage a guy line at the outer open end and centralize it with respect to the spiral and in the locality of an operator of the tractor.

4. An apparatus for engaging the depending guy line of an airship,

a tractor having a vertically rotatable support mounted on the tractor, an open flat spiral of relatively stiff material mounted at its inner end on the support and extending horizontally beyond the outer confines of the tractor and rotatable with the support to engage the depending guy line and to centralize it with respect to the support, means on the tractor for guiding the engaged end of a guy line and winding drum means also mounted on the tractor for attaching the engaged end of the guy line and drawing it inwardly.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,706,414 Schnitzer Mar. 26, 1929 1,845,229 Bradshaw Feb. 16, 1932 2,386,814 Rosendahl Oct. 16, 1945 

